John,

I appreciate your comments and realize that many companies are researching
the topic of reducing or eliminating typing all together.

Natural-language recognition is an extremely difficult problem. I have been
very impressed with the progress that has currently been made. But in all the
years that speech recognition has been out, I have yet find anyone on a
regular basis using any form of speech recognition (with the possible
exception of voice activated calling). Voice activated calling is a much
simpler form speech recognition, since it compares a trained voice with a
simple command. Rather then generalizing a voice over the complete English
language dictionary.

The technical challenges of speech recognition are intense. If you get a
group of 10 English speaking people, tell the first person €œJoe likes golf€�
and by the time it gets relayed to the 10th person, it probably ends up as
€œTarzan and Jane€�. If people have such problems understanding one another, I
can only imagine the problems that a computer has.

I would like to hear more about €œDragon Naturally Speaking now produces
real-time transcripts for many large court cases, running on a laptop!€� In
regarding accuracy, problems, how much human intervention, etc. with this
program.

Even more problematic then the technical issues, is the life style issues
with speech recognition. People like to multitask while working on the
computer, talking with coworkers, listening to radio, or even watching TV
(all that create problems with accuracy). In addition, people do not like
their co-worker in the next cubical overhearing what they are writing. Do not
get me wrong I am not against speech recognition but looking forward to it.

All of this makes this idea of auto suggestion look simple when comparing to
speech language recognition. All the pieces of the puzzle exist; just no one
has put it all together.

I agree with that, the faster one types the less time you have. Assuming a
form of auto suggestion is developed many people who type 60+wpm will
probably not use auto suggestion for this reason. However, there are not many
people who type at 60+ wpm. And for those who dont it will have very
significant impact. I type about 30-35 wpm and I can imagine with a form of
auto suggestion my €œtyping speed€� could approach about 50 to 60 wpm.

The reason I refer to it, as €˜auto suggestion is that it requires a
decision by the typist for the appropriate word or phase. In the same way as
€œTo Whom It May Concern:€� works in Word.

Last point, many people today are making their discision whether or not they
are buying a piece of software based upon the return on their investment. If
it is not significant, they will be just as happy using their old piece of
software. My hope is that this idea and others may be something that will
cause people to upgrade.

Thanks,

Mark Stapel


"John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macinto" wrote:

Hi Mark:

I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that Microsoft among others is
investing millions of dollars in researching this topic.

The first question to be asked is "Why type *at all*"? Much of the effort
these days is going into speech and gesture recognition. As you point out,
sufficient processing power is becoming available to make these applications
viable.

In 1987, I was involved with a natural-language recognition project. It
would occupy a mainframe half the size of a house for 60 seconds to process
a single sentence.

Dragon Naturally Speaking now produces real-time transcripts for many large
court cases, running on a laptop! And my mobile phone drives me crazy by
second-guessing what I type. The faster I type and the less time I have,
the more likely I am to be deeply embarrassed by its attempt to guess "what
I meant".

We have the "artificial" bit solved, but we're still waiting for the first
signs of "intelligence" :-)

Cheers

On 22/3/06 11:01 AM, in article
, "Mark Stapel"
wrote:

First, this is a concept is something that should be turned on and off as I
described in my original post by turning On & Off a icon. Because I see that,
especially a very competent typist may not like it and it could be very
annoying for editing a document.

Second, some 23 years ago, I had an Apple IIe computer; I could not out type
the software program then. I certainly cannot out type my computer now. Word
processing is using so little processing power that it almost doesn't
register on my CPU usage.

Third, there was an old DOS program (approx. 20 years old known as
Mindreader) (on a 286) that did a simplified form of auto suggestion like I
that of the PocketPC. It was great on typing and very fast, it just had a
poor formatting and no cut and paste.

Forth, I have not explored the AutoCorrect algorithm for dates so I don't
understand issues with that. I am not saying that form of auto suggestion is
easy to implement, but I believe with the current processing speeds and the
technology already out there that this is a very workable solution.

Thanks,

Mark Stapel


"Charles Kenyon" wrote:

The reason you do it on tablet PC's is because you can't touch type on them.
Even with current computer speeds, a competent touch typist is going to
outrace an artificial intelligence such as you are describing. Also, take a
look at the problems people have with AutoText and AutoCorrect now,
especially with a problem in the AutoCorrect algorithm for dates. I can
imagine years of frustration before it actually worked at all helpfully. Not
to say it is a bad idea, perhaps just a bit premature.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/ which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.


"Mark Stapel" wrote in message
news 1. The logic is to speed up the typing process by reducing number of
keystokes typed.
2 If someone types "See You L" it suggests that "L" is most likely "Later
"
3 Check out http://labs.google.com/sets
4. I'm not advocating using text message language in documents, but I not
likely to change the attitudes of teens. I just don't want Grandma to get
an
e-mail from their grand daughter saying "c u ltr"
8,9 see #3 and it needs to be from sources like Expedia, News Sources, and
other documents that use and editor.

Thanks,

Mark Stapel

"Tony Jollans" wrote:

Hi Mark,

Interesting ideas that I think go way beyond Word Processing.

I don't know anything about Pocket PCs but suggesting words as you type -
some sort of intelligent prediction - and possibly context sensitive -
ought
to be possible and might sometimes be helpful.

On a couple of specific points

1. You lost me here - what is the logic in this?

2. I don't know what you mean by "see you later" as a logical phrase.

3. I don't disagree in principle but I think it's beyond current-day
capabilities - especially, perhaps, in English.

4. Hmmm.. encourage the use of text message language in documents.
Please,
no!

6. I think having document-level autocorrects would confuse rather than
help.

7. They sort-of tried this to, largely, hoots of derision.

8,9. Word as an intelligent search engine? There is already the research
pane and I suppose this is an extension of it - but how do you decide on
reliable sources? I don't think this is viable today.

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Mark Stapel" Mark wrote in message
...
I have yet to completely understand why there are not more background
calculations to help speed up the process of typing and reduce the time
needed to accomplish a task. So much time has been spent in the
improvement
of formatting in word processing, why not the basics of typing itself.

1. Why after more then 20 years of word processing is the act of typing
still relativity dumb?
2. Why spelling checking after you type, when it can help you spell
correctly the first time?
3. Why grammar check after you type, when it can help you improve your
grammar as you type?

The standard auto correction techniques are good, they just don't go
far
enough.
In order to accomplish the above, there needs to be a form of
autosuggestion
similar to what is the given in the soft keyboard in the Pocket PC.
There
also needs to have a toggle button for this type of autosuggestion to
turn
it
on or off like that of turning "bold" icon on and off. By using the
below
ideas and suggestions I believe that a persons normal typing speed
could
more
then double.

Different Phases of Development:

1. Implementing the similar method used in the soft keyboard in the
Pocket
PC. I suggest using keys []{} based upon the convenience of typing,
since
they are not commonly used in typing. As well as close proximity to
'enter
'
key and using keys that do not force the user to remove a hand off the
keyboard like F1 and ~ and numbers.

From high to low priority keys:

Enter (this is currently used in "To Whom it May Concern")
[
]
{
}

Example: (typing "sug")

} sugar
{ suggests
] suggested
[ suggest
Enter suggestion
sug


Example: (typing "suga")

} sugar maple
{ sugarcane
] sugarless
[ sugary
Enter sugar
suga

So if I type "suga]" I get "sugarless "

2. Logical Phrases
Like "See you later"
Names from outlook contact list, if "John" is typed, the five last
names
given in the outlook contact list (with John as a first name) are
given.

3. Anticipate Grammar.
Anticipate the plural/singular form of a word based on the context of
the
sentence.
Anticipate a noun/adjective/adverb based on the context of the
sentence.
Anticipate the tense of the word.
Anticipate caps and lower case.

4. It should predict names of organizations "United States G" Predict
"Government" "General Accounting Office" etc. Offers typing out simple
abbreviations: U.S. as NAFTA, common lingo BTW, LOL etc. The lingo
conversion
would be esp. helpful for those teens who are writing papers and
letters
to
adults. The lingo conversion could also be helpful for those who text
message.

5. Using statistics to look at the document your writing finding the
most
common words and phrases and place them in a higher priority.
i.e. If some has been writing an article about "football" and used the
word
"football" several times when "fo" is typed the word "football" is
suggested.

6. Abbreviations on the fly, highlight text, right click, and assign an
abbreviation. When the document is saved, a popup window asks if you
want
to
save the assigned abbreviations. This abbreviation can be localized to
the
document or to Microsoft Word abbreviation list.

This would allow one to write an a document about someone named "Bubba"
highlight this name, right click, and add abbreviation "b" the next
time
"bspace" is added to the document "Bubba" replaces "b", ideally this
would
be localized to this document since the next document may be about
"Badminton". It should be smart enough to question abbreviations like
"a"
&
"I".

7. Using statistics to anticipate the type of document it is and offer
the
appropriate suggestions based upon the type of document being worked
on:

Letter
Computers
Resume
Term paper
Personal
Scientific -
Medical - will be using medical terminology
Law - will probably be on legal size formatted sheet size

8. Keyword Index - add words, dates, and phrases to your suggestion
list.
Before one starts writing, he enters a keyword word search about the
topic
activating an internet search for its suggestion list.
From reliable sources like "Expedia" MSN news sources, etc. For example
someone is writing about the "Civil War", before he starts, he enters
"Civil
War" in keyword search, this keyword will be sent out to the internet
through
a search engine and come up with the most common words, names, and
phases
associated with "Civil War" and add them to suggestion list. So when
someone
types "Presi", "President Abraham Lincoln" and "President Lincoln" are
suggested. It might be nice if there is a link to a web site containing
these
suggested words as a smart tag.

9. Keyword Internet index - is an active form of the above topic, (has
greater issues with personal security) as you type keywords an active
search
through the internet occurs, automatically adds new suggested words and
phrases to the list. It could be done on a side bar, with buttons for
start
(search), stop (search), Add all (words, phases), Remove all, a check
box